Ryan Enos is the author of The Space Between Us: Social Geography and Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Enos is associate professor of government at Harvard University. Scholars have long wrestled with the impact of segregation on politics. The difficulty of connecting the causal dots between various forms of segregation and political outcomes has frustrated the solid social science conclusions desired by researchers. Does racial animus follow or lead segregation? Do residential patterns reflect or perpetuate bias? It has been hard to know. Enos’ new book applies cutting-edge experiments to this difficult task. Through laboratory and field experiments, he is able to test difficult questions about the impact of social geography on group interactions. From Boston to Arizona to Israel, The Space Between Us shows how distance and proximity have effects on perceptions of others and difference.

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